Reports of shoddy Amazon U.K. work conditions

One thing I learned early on in this beat is that the British news outlets dedicate much attention to the Seattle-based company, because it does a lot of business in the U.K.

The Times of London reported on Sunday that Amazon “is making its staff work seven days a week and threatening them with the sack if they take time off sick.”

Seattle-based Amazon disputes the report as inaccurate.

A Sunday Times reporter took a temporary seasonal job with Amazon and worked there for seven days as a packer, the Times report said.

Amazon.co.uk is Britain’s most popular Web site for Christmas shopping, the report said.

The Sunday Times said that its investigation into Amazon’s Bedfordshire warehouse found that workers were not allowed to take sick leave, even with a doctor’s note. If they did, they received a penalty point. Six points means dismissal.

Workers also worked mandatory 10.5-hour overnight shifts from Saturday until Sunday. And they were forced to load hundreds of heavy boxes to make unreasonable quotas, the Times reported.

The holidays are a busy and crucial time for Amazon, for sure. I’ve learned from employees here in Seattle that they are always on call, and that this time of year is hectic. I hadn’t heard about some of this stuff in the Times report, however.

“Don’t believe everything you read!” Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith said via e-mail. “There were many inaccuracies in the U.K. article. Case in point: We don’t allow FC (fulfillment center) associates to work more than 6 days a week in any location — they must have at least 1 day off.”

“Freshly laid off? Things could be worse — like, for example, if you were working as a temporary employee at an Amazon warehouse.”

Also, I did a blog post earlier this year about Amazon’s need for workers at its U.S. fulfillment centers.

Update, Dec. 16, 2008:

Times U.K. reporter Daniel Foggo gave me some insight into how he and co-reporter Claire Newell worked on their article.

Foggo had received information over a period of time about “less than ideal” working conditions at Amazon. So, Newell applied for the job and worked there. She found that workers were regularly searched and mobile phones were banned, which made reporting difficult.

“Because of the transient nature of the workforce, interviewing them was very difficult and given their backgrounds many would have been less informed about issues of exploitation (i.e. the possibility of their own exploitation). So going undercover was an obvious course,”
Foggo said in an e-mail. “If we had encountered people who spoke in glowing tones of working at Amazon, this would have been reflected in the article.”

The reporters let Amazon know about their findings before the article was published, Foggo said.

“We really did everything possible to put each and every aspect of our findings to them and the only aspects they disputed were over the short breaks (they said workers wanted them, rather than that they were imposed on them) and they said that the majority achieved their targets,” Foggo said. “We didn’t distort anything. The quotes used were verbatim and were recorded.”